Science, August 17, 2009
Comment from JAK: I think "data analysis" and "greening" are excellent curricular issues to develop and articulate in your curriculum. You must ensure now that your members are appropirately documenting these issues in their maps. Then, you can easily use the "search" function in ATLAS to explore where in your curriculum these topics occur and where they do not, and accordingly, where you may want to strengthen your inclusion of them. A quick search of "data" in the science curriculum that I just did reveals that "data" occurs most in the Chemistry maps, and less so in some of the middle school science maps. I am do not offer and opinion on whether that it good, bad, appropriate, or inappropriate; that is simply what the map reflects. Similarly, you can use ATLAS see where these skills and content occur in other departments to identify interdisciplinary opportunities. Your list of interdisciplinary ideas is impressive; hopefully having them posted here will faciliate work with other departments. I will suggest at the next Academic Council meeting that Department Chairs peruse your list and work with their members to capitalize on some of these opportunities to strengthen the interdisciplinary work that we do in our curriculum. You may want to look at the curriculum maps of other departments--or search the maps--to see if other departments are working on the content that you hope to collaborate on. I'll add that Physical Education and Social Science both mentioned an increased desire to work on interdisciplinary projects, and Fine Arts to some degree as well. You may want to look especially at their maps and/or reach out to those faculty members to try to push along your push for interdisciplinary work. I think this is the weakest area of our original four SIP goals, though it seems to me that Science might be the leader in this area. I appreciate your leadership on this goal and interest in continuing to persue this line of thinking. Future curriculum meetings will be designed to address interdisciplinary work specifically, so we'll will hopefully soon have time designated to talk about this kind of reach out from one department to another.
Science, Oct 17, 2009
Science, August 17, 2009
Comment from JAK: I think "data analysis" and "greening" are excellent curricular issues to develop and articulate in your curriculum. You must ensure now that your members are appropirately documenting these issues in their maps. Then, you can easily use the "search" function in ATLAS to explore where in your curriculum these topics occur and where they do not, and accordingly, where you may want to strengthen your inclusion of them. A quick search of "data" in the science curriculum that I just did reveals that "data" occurs most in the Chemistry maps, and less so in some of the middle school science maps. I am do not offer and opinion on whether that it good, bad, appropriate, or inappropriate; that is simply what the map reflects. Similarly, you can use ATLAS see where these skills and content occur in other departments to identify interdisciplinary opportunities. Your list of interdisciplinary ideas is impressive; hopefully having them posted here will faciliate work with other departments. I will suggest at the next Academic Council meeting that Department Chairs peruse your list and work with their members to capitalize on some of these opportunities to strengthen the interdisciplinary work that we do in our curriculum. You may want to look at the curriculum maps of other departments--or search the maps--to see if other departments are working on the content that you hope to collaborate on. I'll add that Physical Education and Social Science both mentioned an increased desire to work on interdisciplinary projects, and Fine Arts to some degree as well. You may want to look especially at their maps and/or reach out to those faculty members to try to push along your push for interdisciplinary work. I think this is the weakest area of our original four SIP goals, though it seems to me that Science might be the leader in this area. I appreciate your leadership on this goal and interest in continuing to persue this line of thinking. Future curriculum meetings will be designed to address interdisciplinary work specifically, so we'll will hopefully soon have time designated to talk about this kind of reach out from one department to another.